Physical Media Discourse

About

Physical Media Discourse or Media Preservation Discourse refers to a social media discourse over the preservation of video games, films, television series and other media, in part by purchasing physical copies of the media rather than relying on streaming services and digital gaming stores. The debate gradually gained traction in late 2020 on X and 4chan and rose to popularity in the early 2020s as incidents of media getting censored or removed from digital platforms drew public attention.

Online History

One of the earlier instances when debate surrounding media preservation and collection of physical media reached major attention was a 2012 report, that actor Bruce Willis was planning to sue Apple for the right to pass his digital iTunes collection to his children upon his death.^[1] Although later proven false, the news story sparked debates and inspired a research paper^[2] on the subject of inheritability of digital media that concluded that "iTunes, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Google accounts are governed by EULAs that render the accounts not transferable to another user," but that "Digital content is transferable to a deceased user’s survivors if legal copies of that content are located on physical devices."

The debate surrounding the role of purchasing physical copies of video games, films and other media slowly gained traction through the second half of the 2010s, with posts on the subject usually going viral following instances of publishers and media companies removing their products from digital platforms. For example, on November 14th, 2018, X^[3] / Twitter user @NitroRad quoted a news report about publisher Telltale Games entering liquidation and several of its games getting removed from the digital distribution platform Steam, writing about the importance of physical media. The post (shown below, left) received over 1,300 reposts and 3,800 likes in five years. On November 13th, 2019, X^[4] user @WeaponNR posted a screenshot of a user reporting issues with the Disney+ streaming platform in four years (shown below, right).

The discourse gained more popularity through the early 2020s as more news reports about various publishers and media platforms removing or censoring their content appeared. For example, on November 26th, 2021, X^[5] user @slimyswampghost made a post that received over 630 reposts and 4,700 likes in two years (shown below, left).

On November 17th, 2023, film director Christopher Nolan said in an interview^[6] that content disappearing from streaming services was "a danger." On November 18th, 2023, film news X^[7] account @DiscussingFilm posted the quote, with the post gaining over 3,600 reposts and 18,000 likes in four days. On November 20th, 2023, film director Guillermo del Toro quoted the post, writing that "physical media is almost a Fahrenheit 451," and that owning a physical copy of a film made one a custodian of this film. The post (shown below, right) received over 19,000 reposts and 102,000 likes on X^[8] in two days (shown below, right).

Following the post, the discourse achieved virality on social media in late November 2023.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References